Month: October 2011

After August’s hurricane Irene storms, I noticed four damp spots on the ceiling in our master bedroom.

Since several “storm chasing” contractors canvassed our neighborhood after the storm and left literature on my door, I called one of them to inspect our roof.

Fernando, the insurance claim specialist, climbed up on the roof, took at least 20 pictures of our roof damage, then came down and showed them to me. Clearly our roof was hail damaged.

I called our State Farm Insurance agent to explain the problem. He sent an adjuster to look at the roof. I called Fernando and asked him to be here to make sure he stayed in the loop.

The adjuster went into the bedroom, glanced quickly at the water spots, left the room, went outside, and climbed on the roof. A few minutes later he came down and said since I filed a claim for wind damage and there wasn’t evidence of significant wind damage, they couldn’t help us.

Wind damage? I never said we had wind damage. I said we had hail damage.

No, he insisted, “You filed a claim under a wind damage cat code.”

What’s a cat code?

Oh, it’s a catastrophe code.

I’ve never heard of such a thing so I surely didn’t file a claim under a certain cat code.

Still he persisted and said since the wind damage only caused a few spots on the ceiling, that wouldn’t even meet our five percent deductible so State Farm couldn’t help me.

Wait a minute. We don’t have a five percent deductible. That would be ludicrous. Who can shell out five percent of the value of their home as a deductible? You better check your records because I’m sure we have a one percent deductible.

Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because it still wouldn’t be worth having the insurance company pay to repair a few wet spots, he said.

What about the hail damage on the roof?

Oh, I didn’t check the hail damage on the roof, he said, because that’s a different cat code and you filed a claim under a wind damage cat code.

I did not file a claim under a wind damage cat code. I told you that the water spots alerted me to the hail damage on the roof and I wanted you to inspect the hail damage.

Nope, can’t look at the hail damage because it’s the wrong cat code.

Let me just say I have had this exact conversation now with at least 10 different State Farm representatives. They all have exceptional phone skills and seem to be decent note takers because they keep saying, “Let me add that to the log Mrs. Turner,” and “Oh, let me check the log for that.” “Wow, Mrs. Turner this is a very long, detailed log.”

Ah yeah, it’s because I’ve talked to Jeff, Barbara, Ronnie, Greg, Loretta, Heather, Kate, and some new lady today I wanted to strangle because the first thing she said was, “I’m just going to put some notes down about this, okay?”

I get it!

State Farm representatives know how to take notes, review notes, and take more notes, and throw out cat code lingo, but does anyone know how to actually respond to a claim and let me fix my roof?

This is where the anger management comes in. The Mayo Clinic offers tips on managing anger and I decided to see how well I managed my anger directed at State Farm.

Okay, I took several because this fiasco is now moving into the fourth or fifth week. I’ve had lunches with friends, even went on a little trip for a time out. It was even called “Time Out for Women.” Still the problem persists.

2. Once you’re calm, express your anger.

Check that off the list too. I called my local agent back and explained about the multiple phone calls, the long notes in my file, the misunderstanding about the cat code. Then she condescendingly said, “I hate to ask but have you talked to your husband about this? I mean are you both on the same page on this? Maybe your husband gave the wrong cat code.” Enough with the cat codes already! I didn’t even know cat codes existed until your adjuster told me I filed the wrong one, which I didn’t because I never once uttered the words “wind damage” or “cat code.”

3. Get some exercise.

Check that one too. It’s not helping my anger. It helps while I’m exercising but what about when the phone rings again and yet another agent says, “Let me check your record here…and take a few notes.” Talk about getting exercise. Talking to State Farm gets me plenty exercised.

4. Think before you speak.

Last week when I was sent back to my local agent, I calmly outlined the problem for the umpteenth time and she said, “Oh well, it looks like you already filed a claim on your roof for wind damage and it was denied. That’s what the notes say.” Take a deep breath. Be nice and think before I speak. Check. I did that. She referred me to the national call center. Now that’s always a helpful thing, right?

5. Identify possible solutions.

Okay, the solution is simple. Forget the wind damage cat code already. Let’s start over. What is the cat code for hail damage? Let’s just clean the slate here and I’ll live with the inaccurate wind damage claim and lose my “no-claims filed discount” and we’ll start over. Great idea. Let me just take a few notes to add to your file…

I went to yoga last week does that count? I just can’t seal in all that namaste peacefulness and draw it up every time I get referred to someone new and start reviewing all those stinking notes.

10. Know when to seek help.

I confess I’m stumped on this one. Where do I go for help? Clearly no one within the entire company wants to deal with my piddling roof problem especially when there are still people with flooded basements and bigger storm related problems. If I get referred to one more person and I have to reiterate my story one more time and wait for yet another friendly agent to check my notes, I’m going to need more help than a few anger management tips. In honor of Halloween, I might end up in the Funny Farm. You know, like in the late song from the sixties “where life is beautiful all the time and I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats? They’re coming to take me away he he ho ho to the Funny Farm?”

And to think it all started with a few spots on the ceiling and a call to my insurance company.

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I consider myself a savvy suburban woman when I walk on the wooded trails behind my house.

I’ve taken self-defense classes and know about looking people in the eyes, holding my head high, and not listening to my ipod when I’m alone.

I know about people being trampled by deer, and women being assaulted.

So my danger antenna is up, in a healthy sort of cautionary way, not a paranoid pansy way.

Until I see a mouse.

I can't believe I'm posting this picture!

Then I freeze.

My courage is sapped.

Suddenly, I am my mother, a self-described “blithering idiot” when it comes to mice.

Cheerfully walking along, appreciating the cooler weather on the shaded path, I watch for squirrels that hop from limb to limb and shimmy up trees. They don’t bother me, but a mouse? They drive me crazy.

My mouse fear is my mother’s fault.

She taught me the only way to react to a mouse is to jump on the kitchen table and shout obscenities.

With no kitchen table in sight, I picked up my pace and sped past the little varmint as fast as I could, hoping it wouldn’t follow me. Then all I could think about for the rest of the walk was that mouse.

Forget about the fall leaves, the sunshine after days of rain and cloudy skies.

I was afraid the frisky thing would dart out in front of me any minute.

And then I remembered Mom saying, “Where there’s one, there’s a whole family waiting to come out.”

Thank you for that Mother.

I imagined a whole nest of them scurrying around in the woods waiting for me to approach so they could run madly around me and send me into a frenzy that would land me in St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital.

Martha Stewart has gone too far.

Thanks again, Mom.

She’s the one who said she had a room reserved at the state mental because she knew she’d need it someday.

My mom is a brave woman except when it comes to mice. Well, and driving on the freeways… and driving at night … and flying… and using her cell phone… and…

Okay, never mind about her being brave. I’ll say she has gumption, and courage and no one would dare take advantage of her.

But when a mouse pops its miserable little head in front of her with its wiry, snappy tale, she snaps and unravels right before your eyes.

(I won’t write the other names she calls them because I don’t want WordPress to yank my blog…)

One day, she opened a kitchen drawer and saw a mouse scampering among her clean dish towels.

She jumped on the table, screamed and swore, and reached for the telephone to call my Dad to come home from work and save her. He wasn’t there, and she couldn’t find my brothers, so she called my brother’s friend to come and save her. He is still her favorite friend of all my brother’s friends.

My own history with mice is not much better.

Many years ago, I left my apartment building to go to work, and walked out to my car in the parking lot.

I put the key in the door to unlock it and saw a mouse run across the dashboard, to the seat, and then disappear.

As I’d been taught, I screamed.

I thought somebody was playing an evil trick on me so I yelled at the bushes and said, “If you’re in there playing a trick on me It’s not funny. Come out and get the mouse out of my car now!”

Yes, I felt foolish.

I still feel foolish just admitting it.

Of course no one emerged from the bushes.

I asked one of the custodians from the building to help me.

Guess what he said?

“I’m afraid of mice! Let me see if I can get someone else to help us.”

A team of custodians followed me to my car. They fumigated it with a poison.

I, of course, took the metro for several days.

Finally, after the memory faded and the toxic smell evaporated, I drove to work again.

Months later, I was driving a friend home from a party and felt a hard thump on my gas pedal foot.

I looked down and discovered a dead, calcified mouse sitting on my foot.

I stopped the car in the middle of the road (thank goodness it was late and there were no other cars around!), and I jumped out screaming.

My friend removed the mouse from the car and all I could think for weeks was that I needed to sell the car.

I could not drive a mouse-infested car even if the mouse was dead.

I managed to keep the car, but obviously never lost my fear of mice.

I have my not-so-brave mother to blame for all of this ridiculousness.

Oh, and one detail I may have omitted about the mouse I saw on the trail that I worried might bring it’s family and dance around me and send me into a frenzy…